Starting the Story
by HSGisME123
Summary: This is my take on how Jareth came to be. Please be sure to stick around to the end, and please review as well, since feedback helps me write better and better stories. Also, this one is safe to read to children, you have my word.
1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, many ages ago, there was a young man. His name was Jordan. He was blonde haired with bright blue eyes and a sense of wonder unlike any other. He was quite the weaver of tales, and would often tell them to the children in his village, who listened with amazement at how real his fantasies sounded.

I must apologize, first. You were probably expecting a princess, this time, weren't you? You will have to remind me next time so that I can put her in. Oh, she wasn't a princess yet, you say? Just a normal girl? Alright, I'll remember that.

Anyway, one morning, Jordan was out of the house, exploring the world around him, finding his muse. It's something storytellers do quite often, you know. Well, maybe not very much anymore, but back then, they did.

He wandered around the forest that was just outside his village. The grown ups in the village had always warned the children and young folk about the forest. Legend had it that witches and goblins and other scary creatures would come out and kidnap you, and take you to their own little world, where you would never get out. But Jordan had run out of material to use to weave his stories together. He had already gone as far as he could go in every other direction, except for the forest.

Well, he wandered into the forest, against all warnings. He noticed that the further he wandered in, the more unreal everything seemed. He had never seen anything like the forest before, because nobody ever went into the forest, and never told any stories about the inside, of what it actually looked like.

Well, it looked like the most magical thing you could imagine. The sunlight would shine through all those leaves just barely, and it made the ground and everything around Jordan look like it was sparkling. You could hear birds chirping just above the treetops, and little frogs just barely waking up would begin to talk to each other the way that frogs do.

Then, Jordan heard a rustling sound. He turned, expecting to see a deer, or a fox, or something that you usually see in the forest. But there was nothing there. He thought he saw something scurry by, about the size of a small child, but it didn't look quite like a child. It was vaguely child-shaped, though. "What could it be?", he wondered.

He followed after the sound, hoping to figure out what it was. Again and again, he saw the thing that wasn't quite a child, and each time he still couldn't get a clear view of what it was. After quite a long time of trying to catch it, he figured it was very late, and that the children of the village would be waiting for a story. He got back onto his path, and started heading out the way he came.

When he reached the exit of the forest, though, his village was not there. It hadn't disappeared or anything like that, no, I promise you. He probably just kept going down the wrong way, though he could have sworn that he was headed back the way he came. But now the world around him looked quite different, and new. He figured nobody else had seen anything like it before, and how could they? The only way to find it is through that forest, unless you have magic powers, I suppose.

When he walked out, away from the trees, he noticed how the very ground around him seemed to sparkle. It was like the rocks themselves had magic dust inside them. It was easy to guess where it came from, too. All around him, fairies would flutter this way and that, but he got too close to one, and it bit him. They aren't too fond of people, you know. They're not quite sure what people are, so they keep them away.

As he wandered around, trying to figure out exactly where he was, he saw the thing he was chasing earlier. It scurried again, trying to hide behind rocks, but he was too out in the open, now, and Jordan was very clever. He caught the creature as it tried to scurry again from behind another rock.

When he looked at the creature, he wasn't quite sure what to call it. Although it was shaped like a child, and about the same size, it was definitely not a child. At least, that's what it appeared not to be. Was this what a goblin looked like? He wasn't sure. He hadn't seen a goblin before. He couldn't be certain.

"Let me go!" the creature shouted. "Or I'll tell the old Haglady on you!"

"Haglady?" Jordan asked. "What is a Haglady? And just what are you?"

"A Haglady is the evil witch who commands us goblins!" the creature said. "She will be very cross with you if you keep me from getting back to her." The creature then kicked Jordan, causing him to lose his grip, and it ran off.

It ran into a door that was the entrance to a large, stone maze, but not just any maze, it was a Labyrinth. It's like a maze, but usually it has more tricks and twists and turns and traps, and sometimes, even magic. Jordan chased after it, but he didn't see which way it turned after it ran into the maze, and found himself in a bit of a puzzle. That was when he heard something say " 'allo..."

He turned to see a blue worm, talking to him. Rather than question the possibility of a talking worm, (he had just seen goblins and fairies on the same day, after all) he simply asked, "Did you see which way the goblin-thing ran?"

"I did," the worm said, "but you don't want to follow it. The Haglady's castle is a dangerous place. If a human, like you, stays there for more than thirteen hours, you turn into a goblin, like 'im!"

"I don't care!" Jordan said. "I want to know which way it ran, is all. I want to learn more about it. I want to be able to tell a good story about it."

"This ain't worth the story!" the worm said back. "There won't be a story to tell if you go and get yourself all goblin'd up like they did!" This little guy was very serious. He had seen many a child wander into the Labyrinth, never to return, at least, not looking the same way as when they went in.

Jordan knelt down next to the worm so that he could see it eye-to-eye. He leaned in real close so that he could whisper, something he only did when he needed to be heard clearly.

"Look," Jordan said, in his serious, quiet voice. "I am far too old to be a child. I will not turn into a goblin." He was right, sort of. He was too old to become a goblin, since the cut-off age was usually ten years old. Jordan was at least twenty.

"I still won't say nothin' about where the little creature ran off to," the worm said, realizing that he wasn't going to convince Jordan not to chase the goblin.

"Very well," Jordan said as he stood up. "I'll just have to search far and wide until I find it. Maybe I could start by knocking down a few of these walls." He turned around to properly gaze at his surroundings, picking which walls were most likely to budge under pressure.

"H-hang on, there!" the worm shouted. "You can't just do that!"

"And why not?" Jordan asked.

"I-it's against the rules!" the worm said. "Y-yeah! The Haglady made rules, you see. If anyone wants to try an' get through, they have to solve the Labyrinth. If they try to cheat, by knocking down walls and whatnot, then the Haglady catches 'em!" Although the worm's tiny face told that he was lying, he was partly right. The Haglady could, and would catch him if he decided to wreck her Labyrinth.

"Ah, rules," Jordan said with intentional disbelief. "Are there any other rules I should know about?"

"I only stays here, so I don't know 'em," the worm said. "If you meet anyone else, though, they should know the rules." Before the worm had finished his second sentence, Jordan was on his way.


	2. Chapter 2

"You fool!" the Haglady shouted inside of her throne room. "You let him follow you into the Labyrinth!" She glared at her goblins, remembering the transformation of each one of them. The Haglady had messy, brown hair that reached down to her ankles, and light brown eyes that turned red when she got angry.

"But he can be a new goblin," said the one that led Jordan into the Labyrinth in the first place.

"He's too old, you idiot!" The Haglady smacked the goblin with her cane, and it ran into a corner. The other goblins hid throughout the room, fearing the Haglady's wrath.

"No matter," she said. "Eventually, he will get caught in one of the traps, and then we will take him here to face my fury!" She then began her evil laugh, but stopped when her minions didn't respond. With one glare, they all started nervously laughing, allowing the Haglady to continue her laugh.

Jordan had made it decently far on his own. His wide imagination allowed him to see through the early tricks and traps, things like walls not being there and traps in the ground, which he had anticipated. Sometimes, being adventurous and creative has practical uses.

Though, as adventurous his mind may have been, his body was not built for adventuring, and he became tired. He decided to lay down for a moment and figure out the best ways to describe everything that was happening, but he was not aware that he was being watched.

The Haglady had figured out where he was, and watched him through one of her many magic crystals. When she saw that he had closed his eyes, she turned the walls around him inward, to trap him. He would have no choice but to give her a reason to arrest and imprison him.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that he was trapped. It was his fault for letting his guard down, he supposed. What to do, he wondered. How to get out of such a troubling situation? It was quite a tricky puzzle.

His first thought was to climb up and over the walls, but they were too smooth, even though they were built with bricks. Whoever had constructed them was very careful to leave as little room as possible in between the stones. His next idea was to break down the walls with force, but there was nothing around to break them with, and he was not strong enough to break them himself.

That's when his third idea popped up. He could see if these walls defied logic, like most everything else in the Labyrinth. He had learned from earlier traps that sometimes things responded like things they were not, but could possibly be. Perhaps it would work here, too.

He walked up to one of the walls, and knocked three times. To his surprise, the wall moved outward to let him through. It was like he'd always told himself, and the children of his village: there is an answer to every puzzle.

Inside her castle, the Haglady was furious. How could a normal person get out of one of _her_ traps? It was unthinkable. She had spent a good five minutes thinking of how to properly trap him.

At this point, she was beyond trying to think of reasons to arrest him. She'll just capture him herself, she figured. After all, he's only a human. How hard could it be?

"This place might make for a better story than just that one little goblin," Jordan told himself while he continued wandering around. There was nothing quite like feeling all the possible stories bubble up in his head, each one waiting to pop and reveal its words.

He had reached a very large gate, with what looked like an unfinished mechanical giant guarding it. He could tell it was unfinished, because the several pieces had not been assembled. It was just arms and legs and a torso, just strewn out everywhere in front of the gate. The pieces were so huge that Jordan had to climb over them just to reach the door.

When he finally had climbed over all the pieces, though, a surprise waited for him. A dozen or so goblins were waiting on the other side of the different pieces. All at once, they attacked him. They should have been able to beat him easily by outnumbering him, but he had his clever wits to help him.

His limber body could maneuver the mechanical limbs more easily than the scrawny and clumsy goblins could. He would get the attention of two goblins, one on either side of a limb, and let them climb up to get to him, then he would jump down right before they grabbed him. They would bash their heads together and knock themselves out.

When all of the goblins had been defeated, Jordan pushed open the door, and entered the saddest looking little town he had ever seen. It appeared to have stood for centuries, without ever being fixed up, even if it needed it. Any statues or fountains had never been dusted, and all the pipes had been rusted beyond repair. There were definitely citizens, though. He heard them shut their doors as he easily strolled through the town and up to the castle.

Inside the castle, he came across the throne room first. The Haglady sat on her throne, but she was easily half of Jordan's height. He wondered how such a frail looking lady ever came to power.

"I see you solved my Labyrinth," the Haglady said in anger that you could see rising off of her skin like steam. "Why?"

"Why did I solve this?" he asked himself. "I needed something to do, I guess." He thought for a minute more. "A story had to be told."

"A story, you say?" the Haglady said, taunting as she got up and circled around Jordan. "And who is going to listen to such a silly story about a young man who went through a maze for no reason at all?"

"The children of my village would listen," he said. "They always listen-"

"They are children," the Haglady interrupted. "Children have no taste. Besides, how will they listen if you can't ever leave?"

"Of course I'm leaving," he said back. "I made it through in one piece, beat all your tricks and traps, there's nothing else for me to do except go back!"

"My Labyrinth, my rules," the Haglady said. She was very absolute about this statement. Nobody simply _leaves_ the Labyrinth, you see. Not without a fight, anyway.

"Well, that's not fair, is it?" Jordan said.

"I always hated that phrase," the Haglady told him. "Tell you what, if you can beat me in a battle of wits, I will let you leave."

"Piece of cake," Jordan said.

"I hate that phrase, too," the Haglady said. With that, both the Haglady and Jordan vanished, and reappeared into a new place. It was completely black, and the only thing Jordan could see was himself.

He had never been in a battle of wits like this one. He assumed it meant he had to solve another puzzle. That's not how witches battle, though. When witches have a battle of wits, they _literally_ pit their minds and consciousness against one another, and whoever has the stronger mind comes out victorious.

The Haglady was strong, but she wasn't expecting Jordan to be as strong as he was. They had almost absolutely equal power, but it was in different categories. Where the Haglady was strong with ruling ability and magic, Jordan was strong with cleverness and imagination. They were too equaled, in fields that were too unrelated. There could be no winner.

Normally, in a battle of wits, the winner would be the only one to return into the realm of reality. But since this one had no winner, and only one could return, their minds and memories melded together, mixing in an irregular form, and so did their bodies. Even to this day, you can see how the result is a combination of the two.

Now, the person that was two people has blonde, unruly hair, which seems too long for the masculine body it was placed on. The eyes don't even match, but when one personality overpowers another, the other eye changes to match the person in control. Now the two people are forever in a battle over who is the real owner of the terrifying mixture of the two. Over time, they'd even gotten their own names confused with each other, settling on a combination name of sorts: Jareth.

Did you like that story? I hope so. Otherwise, I went through all that for nothing. I'll tell the one about the girl next time, I promise.


End file.
